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Archive for September, 2013

Legislation could create successor agencies to redevelopment, focusing on transit-oriented and walkable communities.

In 2011, Governor Jerry Brown snuffed out California’s plethora of community redevelopment agencies (CRA), much to the lament of cities and their city planners everywhere. The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board recently wrote that city’s lament their loss primarily out of self-interest; stating that the structure of CRAs allowed them to self finance – giving lots of money back to the city. Planners, on the other hand, lamented their fall for a more practical planning reason: Redevelopment agencies were one of the great tools planners could use to assemble land in a manner that made development more feasible with tax-increment financing. So when California State Senator, Derrel Steinberg proposed SB 1 to create CRA’s successor agencies, tentatively known as Sustainable Community Investment Authorities (SCIA), planners took note. It was the first time we had heard of a serious attempt to restore one of the great planning tools we had lost. But how well can it work?